Eric Thompson 
One of the major concerns for many in the United States is the growing threat of China and Russia.
In addition to their increasing military prowess, their cyber warfare, and intellectual property theft has led to huge jumps in their technology helping them almost catch up with big tech companies in Silicon Valley.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and ruling party of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Prior to the 1970s, China was a poor nation with hundreds of millions of its citizens living in poverty. Things began to change though in 1978 as the government reformed its economy. Since then, China’s economy has produced a staggering GDP growth of 10 percent a year.
As part of their growth, a large percentage of American manufacturing moved to China, which has helped provide low-priced products for American consumers but has also given the Red Dragon access to an ever-increasing amount of information on the citizens of the United States.
In what is, to people who don’t trust them, obviously an expansion of the CCP’s plan to get more data, a Chinese company called ByteDance Ltd.m developed an app called, TikTok.
Their App is a globally popular video-sharing social media platform with disturbing links to a Beijing-based corporation called ByteDance. The corporation just announced it will soon enforce new “Community Guidelines” which will label any mistrust of governments, elections, or scientific bodies as “misinformation.”
The new guidelines will be updated on March 7, 2022, to “help keep TikTok welcoming and entertaining for creators and viewers alike.”
In line with the heavy censorship and prohibitions of speaking out against the communist government, TikTok, in its guidelines’ for its “Integrity and authenticity” section, just announced,
“We believe that trust forms the foundation of our community. We do not allow activities that may undermine the integrity of our platform or the authenticity of our users. We remove content or accounts that involve spam or fake engagement, impersonation, or misleading information that causes significant harm.”
Under a “Harmful misinformation,” TikTok’s guidelines continue.
Misinformation is defined as content that is inaccurate or false. We will remove misinformation that causes significant harm to individuals, our community, or the larger public regardless of intent. Significant harm includes serious physical injury, illness, or death; severe psychological trauma; large-scale property damage, and the undermining of public trust in civic institutions and processes such as governments, elections, and scientific bodies. This does not include simply inaccurate information, myths, or commercial or reputational harm.
TikTok’s current guidelines, in place until March 7, don’t mention governments or scientific institutions. However, it does instruct users not to post “Content that misleads community members about elections or other civic processes.”
Last year, TikTok also created some controversy when updating its privacy policy.
App users were informed that the app may collect new forms of biometric data, but the company was reportedly “unable to explain what types of data these terms referred to, or why the app might need to access this information in the first place.”
“A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app ‘may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information from its users’ content,” reported TechCrunch at the time. “This includes things like ‘faceprints and voiceprints,’ the policy explained.”
TechCrunch asked the company to comment on the forms of data that may be collected, here is the response they received:
“TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began.”
Former President Donald J. Trump had expressed concerns over the App being owned and operated by a Chinese firm, threatening to block its usage in the U.S.A. In response, the company established a U.S. leadership team and U.S. branch that satisfied the DOJ, and the App is still collecting and reporting the information to, I believe, the Chinese government in the end.
By: Eric Thompson, editor of Eric Thompson Show.